Cambridge University establishes Lego-funded "professorship of play"

Everything is awesome - particularly if you have academic leanings but secretly want to play with kids’ toys all day.

Cambridge University, the UK’s top educational establishment, is creating a “professorship of play” - which will be funded by toy giant Lego.

The new role - professor of play in education, development and learning - will be established from October 1 and assigned to the faculty of education.

Cambridge University’s vice chancellor has already accepted “with gratitude” a £1.5m benefaction from the Lego Foundation, which will be paid over three years, to support a research centre on play.

A further fund of £2.5m will pay for the professorship.

“The board have agreed that election to the Lego professorship should be made by an ad hoc board of electors and that the candidature should be open to all those whose work falls within the general field of the title of the office,” a report said.

There's no word yet on what the job will involve, but no doubt there will be plenty of yellow blocks involved.

The creation of the role at one of Europe’s oldest seats of learning was recommended by Cambridge University’s general board at the same time as a professorship of financial economic and a professorship of respiratory science. So it’s not all fun and games.